SOMETHING art space
ABJ
Emeka Ogboh
An Immersive Multichannel Installation Exploring the Culture, Economy, and Personal Stories of Migration in the City
Abidjan, the economic hub and de facto capital of Ivory Coast, is a city shaped by the diverse backgrounds of its residents. This bustling metropolis has seen an influx of migrants from various places, especially North and West Africa, profoundly impacting its urban culture, cuisine, and music. These migrants, bringing with them a unique blend of traditional and modern influences, have turned Abidjan into a vibrant and dynamic melting pot of cultures.
The city's culinary scene reflects this diversity, offering a mix of African, Middle Eastern, and French flavours. Similarly, the music scene in Abidjan blends traditional West African rhythms with contemporary styles, creating a lively and varied soundscape. Moreover, the city's fashion scene is a vivid combination of styles, where traditional African textiles and patterns meet modern designs, showcasing the creativity and multicultural influences of its residents.
The project ABJ, named after the International Air Transport Association (IATA) code for Abidjan, delves deep into the rich culture and daily life of Abidjan's residents, with focus on migration. It explores bustling markets, where people from all over Ivory Coast and West Africa converge, offering a unique view of the city's social and economic dynamics. These markets are not just trading spaces but melting pots where cultures, languages, and traditions intertwine.
In documenting the vibrant atmosphere of these markets, ABJ employs sound and film to capture the multiplicity of languages, the sounds of vendors, the haggling of customers, and the overall bustling ambience. This project particularly emphasizes personal interviews with both migrants and local citizens, exploring their stories and experiences in the context of Abidjan's evolving cultural landscape. These interviews aim to provide a deeper understanding of the human aspect behind the city's diversity.
The immersive, multichannel installation of 'ABJ' promises a transportive experience, bringing visitors right into the bustling heart of Abidjan's markets, where the vibrant sounds of commerce and interaction create a lively atmosphere. To deepen this experience, the installation includes in-depth interviews that provide rich insights into the lives of both immigrants and residents, revealing the intricate web of experiences that shape the city.
Expanding its scope, 'ABJ' also features interviews with notable figures from various facets of Abidjan’s cultural scene. This includes fashion designers who artfully combine traditional African designs with modern fashion trends, chefs and restaurateurs who are at the forefront of the city's unique culinary fusion of African, Middle Eastern, and French flavours, and street food sellers who embody the essence of the city’s diverse food culture. Additionally, the project spotlights musicians and music producers who blend traditional West African rhythms with contemporary genres, creating a distinctive soundscape that is emblematic of Abidjan's dynamic culture. Influencers who play a key role in shaping the city’s cultural trends also contribute their perspectives, adding depth to the understanding of Abidjan’s vibrant community.
A special focus of ABJ is on the national dish, Garba, a testament to the city's cultural synthesis. Originally created by Nigerian construction workers in Abidjan, garba has been wholeheartedly adopted by Ivorians as one of their national dishes. This culinary phenomenon symbolizes the fusion of cultures and the acceptance of new influences in Ivorian cuisine. The project explores Garba's journey and its significance in Abidjan's culinary landscape through interviews with local food sellers, chefs, and enthusiasts who share their stories and connections with this beloved dish.
ABJ offers a view of Abidjan, a city pulsating with the energy of diversity. The influx of migrants has not only enriched its urban culture, food, and music but has also fostered a dynamic, multicultural urban environment. This project aims to capture and convey the essence of this cultural melting pot, emphasizing the personal stories, artistic expressions, and the unique blend of traditions that define it. Through this immersive installation, visitors will gain a deeper appreciation of the rich cultural fabric of Abidjan, understanding how migration, adaptation, and diversity have been integral in shaping its identity.
ABJ
Emeka Ogboh
Une installation immersive multicanal explorant la culture, l'économie et les histoires personnelles de la migration dans la ville.
Abidjan, centre économique et capitale de facto de la Côte d'Ivoire, est une ville façonnée par les origines diverses de ses habitants. Cette métropole animée a vu affluer des migrants venus de divers endroits, en particulier d'Afrique du Nord et de l'Ouest, ce qui a eu un impact profond sur sa culture urbaine, sa cuisine et sa musique. Ces migrants, apportant avec eux un mélange unique d'influences traditionnelles et modernes, ont fait d'Abidjan un creuset de cultures vibrant et dynamique.
La scène culinaire de la ville reflète cette diversité, offrant un mélange de saveurs africaines, moyen-orientales et françaises. De même, la scène musicale d'Abidjan mêle les rythmes traditionnels d'Afrique de l'Ouest aux styles contemporains, créant ainsi un paysage sonore vivant et varié. En outre, la scène de la mode de la ville est une combinaison vivante de styles, où les textiles et les motifs africains traditionnels rencontrent des conceptions modernes, mettant en évidence la créativité et les influences multiculturelles de ses résidents.
Le projet ABJ, nommé d'après le code de l'Association internationale du transport aérien (IATA) pour Abidjan, plonge dans la riche culture et la vie quotidienne des habitants d'Abidjan, en mettant l'accent sur la migration. Il explore les marchés animés, où convergent des personnes venues de toute la Côte d'Ivoire et de l'Afrique de l'Ouest, offrant une vue unique de la dynamique sociale et économique de la ville. Ces marchés ne sont pas seulement des espaces commerciaux, mais des creusets où les cultures, les langues et les traditions s'entremêlent.
En documentant l'atmosphère vibrante de ces marchés, ABJ utilise le son et le film pour capturer la multiplicité des langues, les bruits des vendeurs, le marchandage des clients et l'ambiance générale. Ce projet met particulièrement l'accent sur les entretiens personnels avec les migrants et les citoyens locaux, explorant leurs histoires et leurs expériences dans le contexte de l'évolution du paysage culturel d'Abidjan. Ces entretiens visent à mieux comprendre l'aspect humain qui se cache derrière la diversité de la ville.
L'installation immersive et multicanal de "ABJ" promet une expérience de transport, amenant les visiteurs au cœur des marchés animés d'Abidjan, où les sons vibrants du commerce et de l'interaction créent une atmosphère vivante. Pour approfondir cette expérience, l'installation comprend des entretiens approfondis qui donnent un aperçu de la vie des immigrants et des résidents, révélant le réseau complexe d'expériences qui façonnent la ville.
En élargissant son champ d'action, "ABJ" propose également des entretiens avec des personnalités de la scène culturelle abidjanaise. Il s'agit notamment de créateurs de mode qui combinent avec art les modèles africains traditionnels et les tendances de la mode moderne, de chefs et de restaurateurs qui sont à l'avant-garde de la fusion culinaire unique de la ville entre les saveurs africaines, moyen-orientales et françaises, et de vendeurs de nourriture de rue qui incarnent l'essence même de la culture alimentaire diversifiée de la ville. En outre, le projet met en lumière des musiciens et des producteurs de musique qui mélangent les rythmes traditionnels d'Afrique de l'Ouest avec des genres contemporains, créant ainsi un paysage sonore distinctif qui est emblématique de la culture dynamique d'Abidjan. Des personnalités influentes qui jouent un rôle clé dans l'élaboration des tendances culturelles de la ville apportent également leur point de vue, ce qui permet de mieux comprendre le dynamisme de la communauté abidjanaise.
ABJ s'intéresse tout particulièrement au plat national, le Garba, qui témoigne de la synthèse culturelle de la ville. Créé à l'origine par des ouvriers nigérians du bâtiment à Abidjan, le garba a été adopté sans réserve par les Ivoiriens comme l'un de leurs plats nationaux. Ce phénomène culinaire symbolise la fusion des cultures et l'acceptation de nouvelles influences dans la cuisine ivoirienne. Le projet explore le parcours du garba et son importance dans le paysage culinaire d'Abidjan à travers des entretiens avec des vendeurs de produits alimentaires locaux, des chefs et des passionnés qui partagent leurs histoires et leurs liens avec ce plat bien-aimé.
ABJ offre une vue d'Abidjan, une ville vibrant de l'énergie de la diversité. L'afflux de migrants a non seulement enrichi sa culture urbaine, sa nourriture et sa musique, mais a également favorisé un environnement urbain dynamique et multiculturel. Ce projet vise à capturer et à transmettre l'essence de ce creuset culturel, en mettant l'accent sur les histoires personnelles, les expressions artistiques et le mélange unique de traditions qui le définissent. Grâce à cette installation immersive, les visiteurs pourront mieux apprécier la richesse du tissu culturel d'Abidjan et comprendre comment la migration, l'adaptation et la diversité ont contribué à façonner son identité.
Bienvenue à Abidjan, ville de brassage, bouillonnante, vive et créative ! Ville cosmopolite, à l’image de la Côte d’Ivoire, Abidjan se nourrit des influences des peuples venus d’ailleurs, qui représentent environ 25% de la population du pays. Ancienne ou récente, cette immigration provient principalement d’Afrique de l’Ouest, du Nord, d’Europe et du Moyen-Orient et a enrichi la culture culinaire, musicale et vestimentaire ivoirienne. Sur le plan musical, dans les années 1970, l’Orchestre de la Radiodiffusion-Télévision ivoirienne illustrait parfaitement cette diversité : dirigé par Manu Dibango, il a vu éclore des talents tels que Salif Keïta, Mory Kanté ou encore Amadou et Mariam. D’ailleurs, à Abidjan, où l’on trouve à manger à toute heure, alloco, gboflotos, attieke, poisson et poulet braisé côtoient tchep, choukouya, chawarmas et autre garba, sans distinction. Les marchés reflètent aussi cette diversité, et en particulier celui de Treichville, commune souvent qualifiée de petite CEDEAO. Clients et vendeurs de toutes origines s’y croisent et y échangent.
Bienvenue à ABJ ! Intitulée en référence au code IATA qui désigne l’aéroport d’Abidjan, la nouvelle œuvre d’Emeka Ogboh rend hommage à cette vivacité de la capitale économique ivoirienne, à travers des entretiens avec des résidents, qu’ils soient originaires de Côte d’Ivoire ou d’ailleurs. Par cette installation immersive, il nous plonge dans l’expérience sensorielle totale que représentent les marchés : interpellations des vendeurs, négociations des clients, musiques diverses ; couleurs vives et vibrantes des étals ; odeurs puissantes d’épices, de grillades, de volaille vivante ou de poisson fumé ; fruits et légumes, tissus, et autres bijoux que vous pouvez soupeser, tâter, essayer, sont retranscrits à travers le son et la vidéo. Pour illustrer davantage cette fusion culturelle, ABJ retrace le parcours du garba. Créé par des ouvriers nigériens du bâtiment, ce plat qui reflète la fusion des cultures et l’acceptation des influences étrangères dans la cuisine ivoirienne, occupe une place importante dans le quotidien des ivoiriens. Ils y sont attachés au point que le garba est petit à petit devenu un plat national, qu’il soit consommé au « garbadrome » du quartier, ou dans des versions revisitées et plus luxueuses dans de grands hôtels ou restaurants.
Avec ABJ, Emeka Ogboh célèbre les apports à la culture ivoirienne de ceux qui, qualifiés de migrants par les uns et de diasporas par les autres, ont déposé leurs bagages en Côte d’Ivoire, de façon plus ou moins durable. Des bagages que l’on retrouve au cœur de l’installation d’Emeka Ogboh. Qu’on les nomme sacs Tati, « Ghana-Must-Go », ou par toute autre appellation qui leur est attribuée selon le lieu où l’on se trouve, ces sacs emblématiques des migrations africaines servent de support aux projections. Suspendus, comme pour illustrer une immigration nouvelle qui doit encore trouver ses marques dans son pays d’accueil, ils trouvent ensuite leur place au sol, s’imbriquant avec des sacs noirs, caractéristiques de la diaspora qui commerce avec son pays d’origine et y retourne chargée de marchandises diverses. Cette mosaïque, à l’image de la société ivoirienne, reflète le vivre-ensemble qui la caractérise. Les bagages de ceux qui ont quitté leur pays, que ce soit pour des raisons économiques, familiales, ou pour fuir une situation politique et sécuritaire critique, illustration physique d’un patrimoine culturel et émotionnel que leurs propriétaires emportent où qu’ils aillent, se mêlent à ceux du peuple qui les accueille.
Terre d’hospitalité, la Côte d’Ivoire entretient toutefois une relation complexe à son immigration : tantôt encouragée, lorsqu’il fallait faire face à une pénurie de main d’œuvre dans le domaine agricole, tantôt dénigrée et accusée de nombreux maux lorsque le pays s’est enfoncé dans des crises politico-militaires. Pourtant, la Côte d’Ivoire serait-elle aujourd’hui cette puissance économique et culturelle sans ces « frères » qu’elle a accueillis « avec un humanisme à l’africaine, empreint de fraternité », selon les termes de Félix Houphouët-Boigny ? Aujourd’hui, elle accueille près de 34% des migrants d’Afrique de l’Ouest. Alors que sa représentation dans les médias a tendance à amplifier le phénomène de la migration de l’Afrique vers l’Europe, à l’échelle mondiale les Africains ne représentent que 14% des migrants, contre 41% venant d’Asie et 24 % d’Europe. 80° % d’entre eux rejoignent un autre pays du continent.
Terre d’accueil, la Côte d’Ivoire devient de plus en plus une terre de départ. Fin 2023, elle a tristement refait parler d’elle à cause du nombre élevé de ses ressortissants, avérés ou présumés, arrivés de façon illégale sur les côtes européennes. Selon les données de l’agence Frontex, contestées par l’Etat ivoirien, plus de 16 000 Ivoiriens auraient débarqué sur les côtes méditerranéennes au cours de l’année 2023, plaçant la Côte d’Ivoire parmi les cinq principaux d’origine des migrants en situation irrégulière en Europe, après la Guinée (18 335) et la Tunisie (17 412). Ce constat ne doit toutefois pas occulter le fait que la Côte d’Ivoire demeure un pays attractif, comme nous le rappelle Emeka Ogboh avec ABJ. Cette valorisation du pays est une invitation à nous concentrer sur ce qu’il offre de meilleur, et sur ce qui devient le bagage commun de la Côte d’Ivoire : sa richesse culturelle, son hospitalité, ses opportunités économiques et sa gastronomie !
Franco-Ivoirienne, installée à Abidjan depuis 2013, Lucie-Amélie Blocquaux travaille pour des institutions internationales. Elle s’occupe principalement de projets liés à la prévention de la migration irrégulière, et à la réintégration de migrants ivoiriens de retour.
Attractive Abidjan
Lucie-Amélie Blocquaux
Past exhibition
Emeka Ogboh
”ABJ” preview
Paris Internationale 2023.
Set design Clémence Farrell
Video display ETC ONLYVIEW
Films Barbara John Production
SOMETHING art space +
Goethe Institut Abidjan
Oct 17th-22nd
Venue
Paris Internationale
ABJ
Emeka Ogboh
SOMETHING
The piece presented at Paris Internationale edition 9, is an 25 minutes excerpt from a 1 hour work that will be shown in January 2024 at SOMETHING Abidjan
With the support of ETC onlyview and Agence Clémence Farrell. Special thanks to Galerie Imane Farès.
Emeka Ogboh engages with places by using all five human senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. His art installations and culinary creations incorporate sensory elements to explore how private, public, collective memories and histories are translated, transformed, and encoded into different sensorial experiences. Ogboh’s works delve into how sensory perceptions capture our connections to the world, shape our comprehension of reality, and offer a backdrop for examining critical issues such as migration, globalization, and post-colonialism.
The project “ ABJ " aims to reveal the rich culture and daily life of the city's residents through the lens of migration. The bustling markets of Abidjan, where people from all over Côte d’Ivoire and West Africa come to trade goods and interact, are particularly intriguing and offer a unique experience for this project.
The most compelling way to document the unique atmosphere of these markets is through sound and film. The multiplicity of languages, the sounds of vendors selling their goods, the haggling of customers, and the bustle of people moving through the market all contribute to the lively ambience; the markets are a melting pot of cultures, languages, and traditions.
To showcase these findings, an immersive, multichannel installation of sound and video will be created, allowing visitors to step into the heart of the market and be transported by the sounds of vendors selling their goods, the chatter of customers haggling over prices, and the bustle of people moving through the space. The installation will feature a multi-channel sound design and interactive elements that allow visitors to explore the market interactively.
January 2024
Venue
SOMETHING, Abidjan
about video art
“ In the fall of 2018, while in London for a conference, I crossed the city to see UUmwelt, the new installation by Pierre Hughe (b. 1962) at the Serpentine Galleries, anticipating an eye-opening prod from this singular artist. For several decades, I have appreciated how he challenges viewers with well-researched, timely subjects that he transposes into a finely tuned composition -and UUmwelt did not disappoint.
It brought me face-to-face with enigmatic, vaguely figurative images shown on imposing LED screens. My movement through the galleries caused slight shifts in the forms; I imagined one shape to be an odd prehistoric animal, another an abandoned car. Each was situated in a desolate, desert-like landscape.
Reading about the project, I learned that Hughe had created the images using the brain waves of someone who had been asked to imagine a situation, in an informatics lab in Japan. In other words, Hughe had managed to capture the entities straight from the inner machinations of the human brain. What would have seemed far-fetched and unfeasible forty years ago has now entered the realm of possibility.
Hughe's installation is evidence that the urge to experiment is as strong as ever, and that the field originally defined as video art has slowly, radically transformed to encompass a far wider range of technological explorations in art--moving from fringe to mainstream during the period that began when I landed my first position, a research post, at the Museum of Modern Art, in late 1970. The innovations of trailblazing artists like Hughe are what have kept my mind nimble throughout a long and rewarding career as a curator, writer, and professor.
The story of video art begins as video gear first reached the consumer market in the mid-1960s, when much of the world seemed to be in radical transition. The time was right.
We thrived in the "now," adapting Polaroid's instant photograph, the xerographic photocopy, and the telephone answering machine to art and everyday life. We busily recorded and exchanged cheap audiocassettes with favorite playlists of the latest music. David Bowie's song "Space Oddity" moved up the pop charts in 1969, the same year that two US astronauts drifted out of Apollo 11 and walked on the moon. With the aid of technology, humans seemed capable of anything. At the same time, 1960s counterculture instigated alternatives to social norms, with its free love and free speech and the increasing prevalence of meditation and mind-bending drugs that torqued the individual's perceptions and imagination. Out of this environment, video art burgeoned from the grass roots.
It began with the portable camera, the monitor, and black-and-white videotape-the long, narrow strip of plastic with a thin, magnetizable coating that contains the image and/or sound. During recording and editing, video was visible on a monitor screen and audible through a sound system or headphones. It was easily replayed, copied, broadcast live or later from a tape, and today is streamed. I fell in love with the newly accessible medium and worked hard to learn whatever I could.
VIDEO / ART. The first fifty years describes the madcap trajectory of a pliable medium, as video opened up and became a multifaceted art form that grew to encompass a range of formats, including not only single-channel videos but also multi-screen installations and projections; immersive audiovisual environments (sometimes incorporating interactive components); and moving-image works that are streamable as digital files. The field has moved in from the periphery of the art world and has morphed into the more expansive category of media art, defined by the quality of being dependent on technological components to function. This account of how video became simply art follows my own journey as a proponent of its progress.”
1973, 3 minutes
Adrian Piper has won numerous awards and fellowships, including from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenh her personal journals and eim Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften in Vienna, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Institute for Advanced Study. Piper has taught philosophy at Harvard; the University of Michigan; Stanford; the University of California, San Diego; and Georgetown University, where in 1987 she became the first female African American tenured professor in the field.
Her essays in art and art theory, collected in the two-volume Out of Order, Out of Sight: Selected Essays in Meta-Art and Art Criticism, have remained continuously in print since 1996.
“As an artist, philosopher, teacher, memoirist and engaged citizen, Piper embodies the power of broad and deep inquiry bound by a life of clear integrity,” said Matt Saunders, professor of art, film, and visual studies, in a news release. “Piper’s early conceptual and performance work cracked open the art world, making space for essential and uncomfortable conversations that resonate to this day.”
Lydialyle Gibson
Harvard Magazine ( excerpts )
In one of her early works, The Mythic Being, performed from 1972 to 1981, she was filmed walking the streets of New York and Cambridge, dressed as a light-skinned black man in sunglasses, a mustache, and an afro; she recited phrases from her personal journals and challenged other pedestrians to guess her gender, class, and ethnicity.
Piper’s artwork is collected in museums around the world, among them the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Generali Foundation in Vienna, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, and Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany.
Video
ergo sum
Peter Campus
American artist Peter Campus (born in 1937 in New York) is one of the most influential pioneers of video art, along with artists like Bruce Nauman, Nam June Paik, Joan Jonas, Vito Acconci and Bill Viola. The latter helped Campus install his first major exhibition at the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse (NY) in 1974. Throughout his career, Peter Campus has produced videos, installations, and a large body of photographic work.
In his recent video work, he makes use of digital techniques to work on the image, pixel by pixel, rather like a painter.
Using an extremely high-definition digital camera, Peter Campus pursues his current work. A large number of his works are featured in some of the world’s greatest contemporary art museums.
The exhibition “video ergo sum”—the artist’s first solo exhibition in France— retraces the artist’s career, starting with the experimental video art from the 1970s to his more recent video production.
Following studies in experimental psychology and film, in 1971 Peter Campus began to create videos and closed-circuit installations. Their conceptual and technical skill, combined with their psychological and cognitive dimension, resulted in a great deal of attention by art critics and specialists. Campus’s works have become an important reference and have been discussed in numerous publications examining the video as an art form.
The exhibition at the Jeu de Paume begins with works taken from this seminal early phase of his career. In the videos and installations produced up until 1977, Campus explores issues of spatial awareness, and our perception of the body in the construction of identity through the use of unusual perspectives and multiple timeframes. Thanks to the live transmission of the electronic image, he embarks the visitor on a strange and unsettling experience: the confrontation with his double, separated from him in time and space, thereby challenging notions of the self.
From one installation to the next, there is a progressive sense of constriction as the visitor’s actions are increasingly confined. He is no longer surprised by images of himself but is instead confronted with an unknown face: an enlarged projected image of a man’s face staring directly at the visitor. The result is a kind of blockage, an impasse of sorts, an exhaustion of possibilities… The spectator is once again relegated to his activity as observer.
The artist’s current video production explores the
possibilities of high definition digital video and allow Campus to create a pictorial work that involves another form of perception and spatial memory. A new piece, convergence d’images vers le port, was especially created for this exhibition.
Widely regarded as a pioneer of video art, peter campus creates complex installations that engage and amuse, while leading the viewer in a journey of discovery and self-awareness. From the early closed-circuit video installations he began making in 1971 to the more recent work, campus’ entire oeuvre deals with processes of perception and vision, exploiting the specific characteristics of both the electronic and the digital image. His work provides a unique experience for the visitor, who activates the work while exploring their own image. campus’ seminal interactive installations from the 1970s used live camera that reflected the image back to the viewer. campus’ work provides a constant source of mystery and strangeness for the viewer by making the relationship to one’s own image problematic. Indeed, without participation those artworks would not exist.
In 1978, campus devoted his time entirely to outdoors photography, working with nature as his subject. When he returned to video in 1996 after an extended hiatus, the medium had become digital and the equipment much lighter. His video productions from this period are intimate and poetic, yet still as experimental as the earlier work. In 2007, he began creating videographs of landscapes around his familiar environment of Long Island composed of static, unedited shots. campus’ treatment of the images, at the level of the pixel, creates a certain degree of abstraction, engaging the viewer in new exercises in perception and interpretation. His intense connection to site and his attention to light, color and framing may best be seen in his most recent work. Filmed in a natural setting in 4K, ultra-high-definition, the visitor’s gaze intersects with the sensibility and emotion of the artist’s vision.